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CH, DE, OE: Spaetzle Dough for Potato Ricers

This terrific recipe comes courtesy of Principia Gastronomica.

Germany: Königsberger Klopse (Piquant Meatballs in Cream Sauce, Königsberg Style)

Königsberger klopse is the kind of dish that seems to turn up a lot on German restaurant menus, especially in areas frequented by tourists (either domestic or foreign). The dish has the advantage of being seen as comfort food, something that you might see in your small German town's local tavern or restaurant: but when you're away from home, there's always a chance that the place you're visiting might have some new spin to put on it.

Otherwise, Königsberger klopse tend to get presented to the non-German tourist as a regional specialty, with occasionally funny results. One English-language menu recently spotted describes Königsberger klopse as "a delicately simmered meat dumpling..." Fooey. Klopse translates as "meatball", and this is not a high-end dish. It doesn't need to be: with the anchovies in the meat mixture and the capers in the sauce to sharpen up the general effect, this is a tasty and satisfying meal to sit down to. Normally boiled potatoes come along with the klopse, and sometimes a slice of pickled beet as well.

Does the dish actually come from the Königsberg area? Difficult to say, at this late date. For one thing, city names and even country names have changed: Königsberg is now Kaliningrad -- capital of the Russian "exclave" region of the same name -- and the East Prussian cuisine area to which the meatballs are native now spreads from Kaliningrad to northern Poland.

Never mind. They're still good meatballs. Click on "read more" for the recipe.

Germany: Mitternachtsuppe / "Midnight Soup"

This recipe apparently started life as the kind of thing you would partake of in the midst of one of the all-night balls that used to be the rage in Germany, Austria and Switzerland around the New Year's holiday. The basic requirements for the soup at that point were that it be a good restorative: something with a major hit of protein and carbs to kickstart the system -- and probably a fair bit of fat to help slow down the absorption of all the alcohol floating around at that time of year.

Now mitternachtsuppe (or sometimes mittenachtsuppe or mitnachtsuppe, if you come across its name in dialect) turns up in all kinds of places and under all kinds of contexts. From a fancy midnight ball dish, it has slid gently down in the world to become something you put together out of those leftover pieces of yummy sausage that tend to pile up in the fridge when you've been shopping at one of the bigger German supermarkets. Most versions of the soup these days seem to be based on a hearty beef stock and chopped tomatoes: after that the ingredients vary widely.

Our favorite take on the theme -- and our favorite mitternachtsuppe recipe -- originally came from the Department of Nuclear Chemistry at the University of Mainz in Germany, where the intelligent students are quick to point out that under certain circumstances, alcohol is used in treatment for radiation poisoning -- and then of course you need something to help you recover from the treatment. Why not a big hot hearty bowl of Midnight Soup? ... Our own recipe takes their basic version and adds some changes in technique and flavoring which have proved to work out well over many simmering potfuls.

Please note: this is one of those soups that is much better the next day. However, the odds of it lasting that long are slight.

Click on "read more" for the recipe...

Switzerland: Zeughauskeller Potato Salad

Too many people think of Zürich as a boring, gray banker's town, only good for passing through fast on the way to somewhere else. Maybe those of us who enjoy a slower and more thoughtful style of travel should be grateful for this, as it leaves the city to us, and less at the mercy of Rick Steves and those who (having read something by a single travel writer) couldn't be bothered to look for a second opinion.

The same goes for the food in Zuerich. The idea that Swiss food is boring is laughable. True, Switzerland has always been a crossroads for foods from the countries that surround it (Germany, Italy, and France). But sometimes it's taken the Swiss to perfect dishes from one or another of these, or find an aspect to them that the others have ignored. This happens to that commonplace side dish, a kartoffelsalat or potato salad, in a central Zurich restaurant called the Zeughauskeller. (If you're interested in going there, click here for a Google map or scroll down to the bottom of the full entry.)

The place used to be the town armory, back in the day. Now it mostly serves up basic Swiss food -- with French and Italian accents here and there -- to both tourists and locals. The most popular side dish to go with the various grills, roasts and sausage dishes is the Zeughauskeller's famous relatively-low-fat potato salad. They go through approximately twenty metric tons of it every year, and (if you ask nicely) they don't mind giving out the recipe.

Click "read more" to see it... (And greetings to those of you who've found your way here from justhungry's bookmarks at del.icio.us!)

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